Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia

Today was a adventurous and fortunately a rainy 🌧 day, our task today: get our visa extended. Fortunately rainy because it’s not so hot in the busses and you don’t miss a sunny swimming or cruising day 😜.

Now the visa adventure: first you need to know that, depending where you extend your visa, it can be a matter of several days. The queues at the immigration offices can be very long and the processing also can take some days.

My first idea was to extend it in Medan but since the city center does not attract me to stay for 3 days I skipped that idea. Next idea was to do it in Bali but since everyone does it in Bali the queues are sometimes very long and there is the chance that you might leave after closing hour not even talked to anyone.

When we arrived at lake Toba we found out that you also can do it in Pematang Siantar, 60km from lake Toba. We also heard that there are no queues and the people are nice and helpful.

So: getting up at 6:30, walking to the harbour and catching the ferry 🛳 in Tuk Tuk at 7:40. Arriving at Parapat 40 minutes later and looking for a shared taxi 🚖. Finding one (mostly SUVs here) and driving to Siantar for the next 2h (bumpy roads take time). We negotiated with the driver to drop us directly at the immigration, which is on the other side of the city but for some extra cash everything is possible. At 11:00 we arrived and since we had everything in place: the already filled out forms, copies of the passport, the visa and the flight ticket back, the next part went pretty smooth. Taking a biometric picture, giving fingerprints and sign digitally. We were the only ones and the guy was very friendly.

But it’s Indonesia and you definitely need two things in addition here: patience and confidence. Although all data was right and accepted by the system, the application did not go through... problems in the central computer. The guy asked us to come again THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, until then it would be done.

Welllllllll, my name is Gina and I’m not giving up fast 🤪. I talked with him about this and that and what I like here and about food and my job and, and, and. After a while he said he would give it a try after lunch once more.

Ok, waiting for 1,5h. 13:00 lunch break over. Aaaaand third try it went through, yes! Now the payment but where? “You’ll find it in the backyard”, he said. But where, we looked here and there, nothing... Aaaaaah, after entering a totally wrong room *ooops* we were told: there was a BUS 🚌 in the backyard where you can pay... Ok, payment 💰 in the bus 🤪: done!

Back into the office :14:00. Wonderful, everything done.... EXCEPT OF... “The big boss needs to sign it until the office closes at 16:00.” they guy said, and “Maybe he won’t sign it today, that happens often, so maybe you better come back tomorrow...”
Welllllllll.... “I think your boss is in signing mood today 😉, I think I’m going to wait until the office closes at 16:00”, I said with the nicest smile I had go offer. “You can try.” he answered.

Ok, out again and we were huuuuuuuuungry. So we ordered some food around the corner and just before the food arrived tatatataaaaaa the guy came out and said: “You’re lucy, it’s signed.” ❤️❤️❤️. We picked the visa up and finished our food. 15:00. WE MADE IT.

So now back home... first by public shared bus 🚌 through the city to the shared taxi station and from there with the shared taxi to Parapat to catch the ferry. If you ever travelled by public shared bus 🚌 the following is nothing new for you but if not, you should at least try it once. The drivers drive like hell, the busses are squeezed with people and there are no seats but benches and not in driving direction but parallel to it. In addition the busses have no door, so you can hop in and out while driving. It’s cheap as hell but also the shared SUV taxi is cheap (1,30 € for 50km).

At 18:00 we reached the ferry, in time for catching the last ferry at 18:30. 19:15 we jumped from the ferry on the jetty of our hotel.

What a day, but we made it!!! ❤️❤️❤️Læs mere